I'm getting old (quoting my mother). I'm finding that
more and more often I'm too tired at the end of the day to post an entry, so
write them in the morning. Maybe you've noticed!
It was really a slow day at the store. I counted at
the end of the day and I had only nine sales...Sandy had twelve. But it was
nice to sit there and finish the book I had started reading last week
("Acquired Tastes"). Sandy had been to a folk festival the
week before and told me about seeing Buffy St. Marie, one of her favorites.
The singer is 75 now and still looking and sounding wonderful, she says.
While we were talking an old lady leaning on a cane came in and
looking kind of lost. I asked her if i could help her. Turns out she
lives at Atria and there are 8 boxes of books to be donated and she wondered if
we wanted them. I got all the information for Susan and Peter and the lady
went to wait for the Atria limo to pick her up, then came back in and said that
apparently there were two boxes of books in the car, so the driver carried them
in for me.
A couple came in and the guy started browsing through science
fiction while his companion stood back with her arms crossed looking terribly
bored. They finally left without making a purchase.
An interesting looking white haired lady was looking through sci
fi (seems the overwhelming number of browsers look through either sci fi or
fantasy, which are side by side bookcases). I could only see her in
profile and the way she was standing, one knee jutted out like a shelf, though
when she stood up straighter it looked normal. She was wearing a 'Growing
Today, Guiding Tomorrow' shirt and I wondered what that meant until she left
(without buying) and I saw that it as a Guide Dogs for the Blind shirt. I
do love the variety of t-shirts that come through the store!
Another middle aged couple comes in. The guy was in an
aloha shirt and baseball cap with something written in Cyrillic script. He
chose a book to read at the front table while his wife continued to shop.
They eventually bought a bargain book and a book called "The Castle of Otrano,"
a gothic novel.
An Asian guy was browsing the shelves. He had a sock
monkey shirt which was interesting, but every time my head turned in his
direction, his head whipped around and he stared at me. I eventually
stopped looking at him and he eventually left.
Two guys came in, possibly father and son. The older guy
was wearing a Yosemite shirt, the younger was in black trainers with a shocking
pink tab at the back. They were looking thru...what else?...sci fi.
After a very long time, the older guy bought an Orson Scott Card book.
By 4 p.m. I had made only three sales and made $9.
A short rotund couple came in. The woman had shoulder
length very curly (think Bernadette Peters) auburn hair. She was wearing
some kind of silky looking lounge pants and had this odd expression on her face
which I described as "bemused irony." The guy had a protuberant belly and was
carrying a bargain book about Jerusalem under his arm and checked craft books
and cookbooks before the two of them put the bargain book back and waved goodbye
Another no sale.
A scruffy man with a scruffy dog on a leash passed by the front
door, looked in and waved. He then returned with a bargain book, a
Spanish-English dictionary. He said he couldn't pass that up. Up
close he was more unkempt than he was from outside and his UCD shirt was quite
dirty. He told me that reading helps his PTSD and that he gets suicidal on
anti-psychotic meds. When he left, he swung a huge, heavy pack over his
shoulder and walked off with the dog.
An older man bought a bargain book and was looking for books on
Yolo County. I directed him to the shelf of books about California, but he
didn't find what he was looking for.
My friend was early today, 4:15. He bought a bargain book
and "Tales from Ovid: 24 Passages from the Metamorphoses." His bill came
to $9.14 and was my biggest sale of the day.
Until, that is, the next guy came in, a classic nerd with
shorts, plaid shirt (I'm sure there was a pocket protector somewhere), and dark
rimmed glasses. He sat on the floor cross-legged for a long time, then
bought a math book and a physics book for $18.99. He gave me a bill and I
gave him $10.01 in change then when he left had a horrible thought that maybe he
had given me a $10 and I gave him change for a $20. I hope I'm wrong.
A woman came in with six bags to donate and she was followed by
a guy who was either a musician or a hit-man, though the case he carried was too
small to be a big gun. It was larger than a clarinet case. He was in
and out in seconds, stopping just long enough to buy a book on Picasso.
And that was my day. Slow enough that I was able to finish
"Acquired Tastes," which I started last week.
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